


A Long Way From Heaven

by LivefromG25



Series: A Long Way From... [3]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: M/M, Muse!Armie doing what he does best, moping around and wondering why he hurts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-24 07:06:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19718668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LivefromG25/pseuds/LivefromG25
Summary: Armie misses him. That is all.





	A Long Way From Heaven

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ihighlydoubtthat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ihighlydoubtthat/gifts).



> I've put this in the Long Way series because... I don't know, Armie told me to. It only half fits with the other works and I didn't want to tie in too tight to what was already written there but... anyway. Here you go.
> 
> With thanks to L for the support and reading and rereading and support. <3

Time and Space.  


That’s what I said I needed. Time and Space. 

  
Perhaps I should have consulted someone before making such a rash decision. A theoretical scientist would have been good. A therapist, perhaps. _You_.

 _  
Why_ wasn’t it you? 

  
I hope I get to tell you one day how angry I am at myself. About _everything._  


There is no one in this universe I was more open with than you. We’d speak all day, all night and still try to slot words in between. I’ve traded more words with you than I have with anyone else in my life combined. And, more than that, it was always honest. There was never a reason to hide with you. Even if sometimes I knew I was insulting your intelligence by stating the obvious, I’d still do it just to keep you listening. Easing my constant hunger for the optical caress I’d receive like a reward for my truth. 

So, yes, communication between us has always been amazing. Unless it was fucking important. Like Midnight, when I didn’t speak, and at the end, when I deemed words unworthy.   


Time and Space.   


Like most of the emotionally insecure, I fell back on cliches after I made the mistake of telling you to go. The whole point of them is their universality - stock phrases to make you feel less alone - whatever you’re going through has killed no one yet, don’t worry friend, this doesn’t have the power to ruin you. 

So with that trusty logic in mind, I’ve been doing nothing short of making sweet fucking love to “absence makes the heart grow fonder”. Trust falling on it and completely ignoring the irony of believing a random cluster of words could somehow keep us together. 

Of course, now I realise what a load of shit it is, but for a blissful time it sustained me. Looking back, I wish there’d been a cliche more akin to “the words that will keep you together are the ones you’re too afraid of saying, dickhead. P.s. it's not time, and it's not _fucking_ space.” 

It wasn’t until you left that I realised that love and proximity have a warped and undeniable correlation. One I should have planned for.

  
I keep revisiting the night of the first storm in Crema. In the attic, you by the window, looking out at the night sky; unbelievably clear after the first downpour. 

“Come here, look at the stars” you exclaimed, the wonderment on your face illuminated in the moonlight. I didn't move, staying exactly where I was, leaning back on the mattress. 

“I can see”. 

Your brow furrowed, “You can’t see them from- oh”. A slow grin spread across your face as you realised my gaze was directed only at you.

“You’re an idiot”, the words soft, smile infused as you turned your head back to the view, the rose red tip of the joint between your fingers glowing bright as you inhaled. Jealous of the moistening tip between your lips, I called you back over to the bed.   
  


You came willingly, as always back then, your long limbs slotting over my hips as you transferred the joint from your mouth to my own. I savoured the wet heat for a second, allowing my tongue to touch the tip, my saliva with yours, before taking a long drag and extinguishing it in an empty Peroni can by the side of the makeshift bed. I held the smoke in my mouth, turning to exhale it between your wet, open, inviting lips, chasing it with my tongue as your body fell against me. 

Without breaking the kiss, I trailed my fingers along the hem of your t-shirt until your skin was like braille, spelling out the words your mouth was too occupied to say. “ _Yes, please_ ”. “ _I want you_ ”, “ _I need this_ ”. 

The removal of the soft cotton was swift, surgically precise as if I had done it hundred times before, my lips only leaving yours for the briefest of moments. The rain had begun again and an unbidden thought entered my head that, despite the deluge outside, it still sounded wetter under this roof. The slippery slide of our tongues, your open mouth against my own, against my jaw, down my neck. The sweat of your skin dampening every inch of my own, salty but undeniably sweet as I tasted you. 

Tipping us over, I delicately lay you amongst the sheets, my fingers tracing your body, mapping out constellations in freckles. I planted large kisses against the most prominent ones as I traversed the unknown, internally declaring them all north stars to guide myself home.   


I was so in love with you in that moment. I knew you were something so otherworldly: something that I didn’t deserve.   


It was that very thought which instantly sobered me and I pulled back, my lips taking their own sweet time in getting the message, nipping and biting at the hollow of your hip. 

Making swift excuses and avoiding your unfocused gaze, I got up and threw your shirt at you. Words tumbling out of me, colliding with miles of pale moon-lit and kiss-glittered skin. Excuse after excuse in waves, all the reasons we couldn’t do this, why we had to stop. Luca. Filming. We were too high. I skillfully avoided the swirling black hole over my right shoulder, the very essence of my existence outside of Crema. I knew if I brought us too close to that darkness it would not only tear us apart but irrevocably change us. I had to protect you.

Selfishly, I also wasn’t ready to let you go. What I had found in you I wanted to keep and hold close for as long as I could.  


The earthly pull we had on each other had been clear from the moment we met. You _didn’t believe_ in astrology but, yet, somehow had an encyclopedic knowledge of just how our stars had aligned. You were grateful I wasn’t an Aries. Capricorn and Virgo, you said, were a partnership made in heaven. I had smiled at you, warmed by the thought and you blushed, ducking your head as if embarrassed you’d said it out loud. I didn’t understand why - Let’s face it, if either of us would have insight into the inner workings of heaven, it would be the one directly sent from there. 

So, in the days that followed our close encounter, that connection ensured that despite any initial awkwardness, we were never more than a few feet apart for the rest of filming. I assumed that such a strong gravitational force, one that had my hands reaching for you at all times before I could stop them, could withstand anything. It felt out of our control, a simple fact of life. Of physics. Of chemistry. Your I’m-not-really-into-it astrology.  


Time and Space.  


It was comfortable for a while. We knew where the line was and we did our best not to touch it. Least not with our bodies. Our minds did their own thing. Words often pushed themselves way past what they probably consider acceptable. Our imagination’s infinite. But that was okay, right? Because we were - to borrow a phrase - _being good._ It wasn’t until long after filming and well into promo I felt our connection was putting a strain on everything else. The tension was becoming undeniable and what had always been something magnetic between us was repelling everything else. 

I thought maybe if I - if we - put in some distance after promo, maybe it would be easier on us both? Would we continue to be satellites around each other or would exposure to new people, new projects, pull us out of orbit? Was what we had, this thing that we couldn’t even qualify, let alone quantify, strong enough to withstand anything?  


As I said, I should have consulted someone smarter than myself.   


Because I let that thought become the reality. When promo was over, I asked you to go. Not unkindly, not with any fanfare or drama. I just… _asked._ And you, _as always_ , did what I asked without question.   
  
Why didn’t you fucking question it, Tim? 

Because now this new reality is that I am surrounded by the debris of a marriage that couldn’t withstand the solar storm. Watching you from light years away, knowing everything my eyes alight on is already in the past. You’re forever in the past. 

I miss you in the present, Tim. 

And I miss me - the me I was before I became this rogue planet, untethered and off course with no idea what the fuck I am doing. 

Time and Space. 

I guess I got what I asked for. 


End file.
